Borderlands, Bonding over things that go Boom
by Linken88
Summary: A short little story about Gagie, Tina and Moxxi and what they did on the day Lilith interrogated Athena.


**AN: I came up with the idea for this story while playing the Pre-Sequel and wrote it in a day, Enjoy.**

"This is going to be a slow day." The tall busty woman with her face covered in white makeup says as she surveys her bar.

Ruining a bar on Pandora is never a very fruitful businesses, and when your bar happens to be in a floating city that once was a military base, the amount of customers are even slimmer. But Moxxi wasn't in Sanctuary to make money, she's there for revenge. Well it started out as revenge anyway, after Jack, Know also as Handsome Jack, blew up her fighting pit she wanted him to pay. But as she worked with the Vault Hunters of the Crimson Raiders their cause grew on her.

And now after everything that has happened and with Jack finally dead she's happy to kick back and live the easy life of running a small bar. And that is what she has been getting for several months now, but this is not going to be one of those days.

For a while Lilith, the leader of the Crimson Raiders, has had teams on the hunt for one of the few remaining people still alive that worked for Jack prior to him talking over Hyperion. And finally Mordecai and Brick were able to capture Athena, the Gladiator . Athena is a former Atlas assassin turned mercenary/ bounty hunter after the fall of General Knoxx.

Moxxi used to know her somewhat when she ran the bar in Concordia on Elpis, the moon of Pandora, but their conversations were very short leaving not much for Moxxi to judge her by. But one thing Moxxi did know about Athena is that she was the only one of the five people that helped Jack find the Vault that walked away, A choice she guessed Wilhelm and Nisha both wish they made as they died. Claptrap also helped, but he is a robot and doesn't really count and not even Sir Hammerlock knows where his sister is.

Moxxi would like to be there to hear the interrogation of Athena, but she's sure she'll hear all about it later that day from the men when they come in looking for a drink.

So for a while she maned her bar giving drinks to the few people that came in, She'd also flirt with some of them to get some nice tips.

"Yo toots! Give me a stiff one." Moxxi hears someone say from the end of her bar.

She looks over and sees the blond thirteen year old girl named Tiny Tina. Tina was a victim of the Hyperion take over of Pandora like most people in Sanctuary, but she never showed it. She's a crazy teen with a love for anything that went bomb.

"You're not getting anything other than milk Tina." Moxxi says walking over to the end of the bar.

"Don't be like that sugar, I'm good for the scratch." Tina says laying a few bills onto the table.

Moxxi sees some of herself in Tina, the way she talks and bosses people around is just like she did as a teen, although Moxxi did it to swindle unsuspecting men out of their money.

"Because Sugar."Moxxi says leaning down onto the counter. "You're still a growing young girl, and growing girls need their milk."

Moxxi doesn't know if Tina has a real interest in girls past playing around, nor does she care, but Moxxi does know Tina has always had a fascination with her "Money makers", and as Moxxi leaned down on the counter she knows she's beaten Tina by the expression she has on her face.

"Thats cool Mox, real cold. Fine I'll take your stupid milk." Tina says looking away from Moxxi.

"Thats my girl, go grab an empty booth and I'll bring you a glass."

Tina skips off towards the booths and Moxxi smiles at her own victory. "Lets see Lilith get Tina to obey like that." She says as Tina pulls a half asleep man from a booth and takes his place.

Moxxi is the only person in Sanctuary that is a parent and is sure that is how she knows how to get Tina to listen, sometimes.

The trick that no one was ever able to do was to get Tina to come live in Sanctuary as opposed to living in a cave by herself. But after Jack killed Roland, Brick, Lilith and Mordecai were able to convince her that it is what Roland would have wanted and Tina finally took up residence in Sanctuary.

As Moxxi pores the milk into a glass she starts to feel nostalgic and remembers pouring milk for her own girl when she was little, though Ellie has never been little like Tina. Looking at the glass Moxxi wished she could find some other place for Tina to live other than a military base, but their is no such place on all of Pandora.

'Best keep those maternal instincts at bay Moxxi, don't want to go too far and have a slip up and end up with a third.' Moxxi thinks as she carries the glass over to Tina.

"Here you go kid o, drink up so you can grow up." Moxxi says with a smile and a wink to Tina as she sets the glass down.

Tina doesn't say anything, she just takes the glass and takes a big drink from it.

Moxxi ruffles Tina's hair and the turns to walk back to the bar.

For an hour Tina sat in the booth drinking her milk till the glass was empty and then went to moving around on the booth bench sitting in different positions and eventually settled with laying on the bench with her head hanging off the end.

Moxxi was about to walk over to Tina and ask her if she wanted something to eat, her motherly instincts kicking in again, when the second youngest residents of Sanctuary walked into the bar.

Gaige, the self proclaimed Mechromancer, is a seventeen year old redheaded girl with a robotic arm of her own design that she has the digistructing device for her flying robot in.

Gaige is, in her words, a technical genius underappreciated by her peers and came to Pandora to escape murder charges that were not entirely her fault.

"Hey Moxxi, got any coco?"Gaige asks hopping onto one of the stools at the bar.

"Sorry Gaige, no luck finding any on this dirt ball."Moxxi says feeling sorry for the teen.

Mia once told Moxxi about how Gaige's father would bring her hot coco while she worked on her projects, and even a Psycho could figure out that coco was Gaige's way to stay connected to her family.

Gaige frowns and sighs. "Damn, well thanks anyway." She says getting off the stool.

"Why are you not at the interrogation Lilith has going on? I thought you would love to hear about a Vault hunt on the moon." Moxxi asks curious as to why Gaige is not with her fellow Vault Hunters.

"Lilith made me leave. Athena started to talk about a bunch of scientists in an air lock and the all of a sudden Lilith told me that she wanted me to go do something else. Haven't I proven the fact that I can handle this crap? I helped kill the warrior too." Gaige says clenching her metal hand into a fist.

"Sorry kid o, sometimes people do things for your own good, even when you don't think it is."

Moxxi also sees some of her younger self in Gaige, but it was her mechanic side that only a few still living people have ever seen. Moxxi is a tinkerer, just like Scooter and Ellie, but she hides it in favor of sexapeal, easier to get all of someone's money that way. But Gaige doesn't hide her stills, not many seventeen year olds could have built a flying robot all on their own. And DT is an amazing piece of machinery, even if it got third place in the science fair.

"Bah, this is stupid I should just-."

"Gaige! Baby Cake!" Tina yells jumping onto Gaige's shoulders.

"Jesus Tina! I almost sent DT after you. What the heck are you doing?" Gaige asks trying to shake Tina off her shoulders.

But her shaking didn't work and Tina claimed up and sat down on Gaige's shoulders. "I was just listening to you cry about not getting to hear more about people dieing on the moon and just thought, YOU SHOULD CAN IT, at least you heard some of it." Tina says raising her voice for a few words.

"Ack! For a little person, you yell really loud." Gaige says picking Tina up from her shoulders.

"Why thank you, it's a skill that takes practice to master." Tina says giving Gaige a curtsy.

Gaige has always found Tina to be strange child, but then if anything on Pandora was normal, it's best to shoot it and be glad that it's dead.

A light turns on in Gaige's head. "Oh hey, you like things that blow up right?"

"Dose Butt Stallion have legs for days?" Tina asks back with her own question.

Gaige was really unsure what Tina was talking about. "I uh... yes?" She says hoping she gave Tina the right answer.

"Well there you go."

"Ok... so anyways I found this Maliwan shield that I think is supposed to cause an explosion when its drained, but when I tested it on Salvador he just got shocked instead, think you could help me fix it?" Gaige asks taking a shield mod from her pocket.

Tina takes the shield from Gaige. "This is a noble and dangerous task, step into my office and we will see what can be done." Tina says walking back over to the booth she was laying in prior to Gaige entering the bar.

As the two girls sat at the booth talking and working on the shield Moxxi couldn't help but admire them. The chaos and dangers of Pandora seem to not exist to them, all there is is the work in front of them. After a while Moxxi even brought them a plate of Crumpets, Tina's favorite food, to eat as the worked.

"Thanks Moxxi." Tina says before stuffing an entire crumpet into her mouth.

"Yeah, thank you." Gaige adds.

"No problem kids, just don't blow up the place if you can help it." Moxxi says walking away from the two. 'A thanks from Tina, I should get those two to spend more time together.' She thinks amazed that Tina was almost polite.

"I think that dose it." Gaige says as she attaches the face plate to the shield. It's been almost two hours since the girls started working on the shield, and the table is covered in crumpet crumbs and Gaige's tools from the work the two did.

"Let's get Salvador to test it again, I wanna see something go Bomb!" Tina says grabbing the shield before jumping out of the booth and then starts running to the main exit of the bar.

"Hey wait up Tina, he has to shoot at one of us and I'd rather it not be you." Gaige yells at Tina, who is already out the door, as she quickly gathers up her tools. Gaige hastily shoves them into her pockets and darts after Tina.

Moxxi walks from behind the bar and over to the door to watch Gaige chase after Tina. 'Kids will be kids.' She thinks as she hears yelling eco through the city.

"No!"

"If it weren't for people like her, our friends might still be alive! Ready-"

"This ain't us, Lil!This ain't YOU!"

"FIRE!"

Moxxi heard several gun shots go off and quickly runs for where the sound came from. If Athena managed to get free Tina and Gaige were the last people she wanted the assassin to find.

But as she turned a corner she almost runs into Gaige and Tina standing still faces wide from shock.

And for good reason too, standing next to Lilith and the still tied up Athena are several of the aliens responsible for the Vaults.

"War is coming. And you will need all the Vault Hunters you can get." One of the aliens says to Lilith.

"Oh damn, hey Gaige." Tina says pulling on Gaige's shirt.

"What Tina?"

"Think we can blow one of them up?"


End file.
